A post on Slickdeals.net describes how to get a $20 credit from EA's Origin service that can be used to make a $19.99 purchase essentially free. Apparently the credit is offered for the completion of a simple survey. Thanks Siliconera.

Post CommentEnter the details of the comment
you'd like to post in the boxes below and click the button at
the bottom of the form.

I doubt it. The whole idea and content of the survey was to encourage users to use Origin. All six of its questions were basically "Since Origin does X, will you use it?". It wasn't really designed for feedback as much as promotion and encouragement to use Origin. The coupon code was intended for one free game per Origin account, and that restriction was enforced shortly after people starting sharing the code. So, since the survey was so short anyway and since it was intended to get people to use Origin, the fact that the code was shared with people who didn't necessarily complete the survey didn't change the intent of the promotion.

I don't know how many people received the survey invite (I did and I had never installed or used Origin), but I assume I got it from being on EA's email marketing list. That list has to have millions of email addresses on it given the popularity of EA's games. If every one of those users got the survey invite, that's already millions of users who would have gotten a free game. So, I doubt EA is upset that its promotion exploded the use of Origin at the expense of some old games which it has already sold countless times very cheaply in sales at Amazon, Gamersgate, etc. and has given away in the past during other promotions.

In any case EA showed real class in honoring the redeemed games. When leaked/exploited promotions like this happened on Steam in the past (Dirt 3, Dead Island, etc.), Valve always removed the games from every user's account that redeemed the codes even though there was no way to tell who was legitimately supposed to have them and who wasn't, and I know that from personal experience.